Yep, the crusties will love this! Hombre Malo kick off proceedings off and, to be honest, they do take a while to hit their stride. Once they do though, they just click and you're right in there with them, tearing shit up. The first three tracks are essentially punked-up stoners while closing track "Burial ground for a past life" showcases the oslo-based sludgers at their finest. The punky stuff might sound cool and all, but when Hombre Malo hit mid-pace before slowing to a drawn-out, doomed halt, it's as pummelling as a bag of pool balls to the cranium. More of this in the future will level cities.

I take it Spain's Desert Icons have listened to a fair bit of Thin Lizzy in the past. The bits on here that do sound like a metalized Lizzy are the downers here. They just lift and brighten the atmosphere a bit too much in something that has the potential to be dark and nasty... in an outstandingly metal way. Out of three songs, opening track "The search" is Alchemist meets Thin Lizzy and the second song, "Animal rage" is Immortal meets Thin Lizzy. And the Lizzy bits are everywhere in both. Closing track "Time for the storm" is the best of the bunch here by miles and it's killer. And there's no Thin Lizzy in it at all! It showcases a band with an identity of their own who sound so fluid when they just run with it rather than trying to show people that they can play like Thin Lizzy. NB. I think this is the most I've ever written Thin Lizzy in my life.- John Norby

Swedish rockers The Soundtrack of Our Lives are officially calling it quits after 18 years and will be doing one final tour this fall, culminating in a final 6-date run at Södra Teatern in Stockholm where they will perform each of their six albums in full in order on subsequent dates:

Norwegian indierockers Simon Says No! are calling it quits with one last EP of previously unreleased material called "For the last time" and a couple of farewell gigs in Bergen and oslo on September 29 and October 11 respectively.

"300 Acting Spaces" is the name of a new experimental music/multimedia project based out of oslo and spearheaded by artist/professor Alex Gunia. In addition to providing an intimate performance venue for many of Norway's leading artists in the genre including Lasse Marhaug, Maja Ratkje, Supersilent and more, the venture also aims to link up with similar venues worldwide, both conceptually and online. And for those purely interested in the music, all shows will be streamed live and immediately archived for public listening via SoundCloud. Read more: http://300as.com/